Parent Perspectives of Cultural and Linguistic Competency Practices in Early Childhood and Recommendations for Improvement

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Abstract

Cultural competency is a widely emphasized and important practice in education, yet many educators report limited preparation and skills to appropriately develop a culturally competent teaching practice and support home-school consistency. The present, exploratory study uses mixed methods to explore culturally and linguistically diverse, urban preschool parents’ perspectives of their school’s cultural competency behaviors and recommendations for improvement. Although small variability, parents rated their school’s communication styles as the most culturally competent, and physical environment as the least. Parents felt consistency between school and home was critical to ensure their home culture was being recognized and respected, and indicated they wanted increased schools to increase emphasis on values such as kindness to combat the current negative social and political climate.

Authors

• Catherine R Gaspar, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Laudan Jahromi, Teachers College, Columbia University